enews – Page 68 – *IT Exclusive News

5 Big Data Vendors To Watch

June 22, 2014June 22, 2014 enews

Big Data is often associated with big vendors—the likes of IBM, Oracle and SAP. But the industry is also full of up and comers and niche specialists that could make an impact on a market said to be worth more than $32 billion by 2017. Gartner has released a list of five Big Data vendors to watch, as enterprises search for technology to draw intelligence from the vast amounts of information collected daily. Analyst Svetlana Sicular posted the list June 17 with the caveat that there are “many more companies…

Oracle Earnings Disappoint As CIOs Opt For The Cloud

June 22, 2014June 22, 2014 enews

Oracle reported that new license sales were flat in the last quarter, evidence that CIOs are increasingly looking to the cloud for software. Oracle also reported June 19 that profits fell 4.2 percent on higher expenses in the fiscal fourth quarter, to $3.65 billion. Lack of growth in new license sales, a key metric for software makers, is what sparked a more than 6 percent drop in share price in after hours trading. “New licenses was a major culprit for the shortfall and will be a focal point of investors…

Oracle buys LiveLOOK for co-browsing technology

June 22, 2014June 22, 2014 enews

Oracle is scooping up co-browsing software maker LiveLOOK in a bid to flesh out its suite of customer experience software. LiveLOOK’s product is already being used by more than 100 Oracle customers, having been embedded into Oracle’s customer service application. It gives support and sales representatives a way to browse alongside customers in order to fix problems and help them make the right purchases, according to a statement. Some 500 customers use LiveLOOK, according to a FAQ document released Friday in conjunction with the acquisition announcement. Oracle is locked in fierce competition…

20 Ways to Reduce the Operational Costs of Your Network Before it’s too Late

June 22, 2014June 22, 2014 enews

We reached out to over one hundred industry experts and asked, “What don’t people understand about the costs of operating a network but should?” Here’s a collection of our favorite advice. “Networks are expensive, get a bad rap for reliability (even when they are meeting their technical specifications), and at the end of the day few businesses could operate without them,” said Matthew H. Podowitz, (@mpodowitz), Senior Director, Operations and Technology Advisory Services, for Pine Hill Group. Even when networks are so critical for business operations, the money that’s spent on…

5 gadgets that changed Amazon

June 20, 2014June 22, 2014 enews

Ahead of the rumored unveiling of its 3-D smartphone, we take a look at Amazon’s devices through the years. Kindle Year released: 2007 Price: $399 The Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) Kindle wasn’t the first e-reader, but it was the first successful one. When it launched in 2007, its biggest competitors, like the Barnes & Noble(BKS) Nook, were still years away. Since then, the Kindle has gone through several redesigns and editions, including the jumbo-screen Kindle DX, the touchscreen version and the backlit Paperwhite. Today, a Wi-Fi-enabled Kindle is nearly half its original weight, holds up to 1,400 books,…

Microsoft Kills Off Plan to Pay People to Write Good Things About Internet Explorer

June 20, 2014June 20, 2014 enews

Microsoft PR is in damage control after a ‘social strategist’ was caught trying to pay people to write good things about IE. Wed, June 18, 2014 Network World — It was only a couple days ago when Microsoft released its Internet Explorer Developer Channel, “a fully functioning browser designed to give Web developers and early adopters a sneak peek at the Web platform features we’re working on.” Any chance IE might have gotten some long-term social media love was dashed after a clueless “social strategist on behalf of Microsoft” invited the…

What Microsoft’s New CEO Means for Microsoft CRM

June 20, 2014June 20, 2014 enews

On February 4, 2014, Microsoft named the third chief executive officer (CEO) in its history. As such, forgive me in advance if this article is a bit optimistic. After years of watching the decisions made by its second CEO and wondering when the crazy would stop, I’m a little giddy right now. My guess is that others feel the same. When the company announced Steve Ballmer’s retirement, the stock surged 9 percent. Under Ballmer’s leadership, Microsoft saw a festering stock price, with a 44 percent decline and a market valuation sliding from $604 billion to $269 billion.…

Amazon unveils 3-D Fire Phone

June 19, 2014June 20, 2014 enews

Amazon entered the smartphone business Wednesday — and made a big splash doing it. At an event in Seattle, the retail giant unveiled the Fire Phone, a high-end, 3-D smartphone. It is the first smartphone Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) has produced on its own. “Can we build a better phone for our most engaged customers?” asked Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at the event. “Can we build a better phone for Amazon Prime members? Well, I’m excited to tell you that the answer is yes.” Display: The Fire Phone has a 3-D, 4.7-inch high-definition display. It uses…

Heathrow Terminal 2 trials smart loos to monitor usage and alert cleaners

June 19, 2014June 20, 2014 enews

Heathrow Terminal 2 can use the data to analyse whether new loos are needed… Heathrow airport has installed sensors into its toilets at the newly opened Terminal 2 to monitor the number of people using each unit. When a certain number of people have used a unit, cleaners are alerted and they are cleaned. The data is also sent to the cloud so it can be analysed by planners who are then able to see where the highest demand for toilet facilities around the terminal is. In the long term,…

LSE: Cloud is “years ahead” of modern IT

June 19, 2014 enews

Professor at the London School of Economics hails the cloud as years ahead of modern IT services Cloud computing is experiencing a shift in focus, and companies should avoid comparing it to current IT when it is years ahead of the curve, says London School of Economics (LSE) professor Will Venters. “What some business want from cloud and what cloud is truly offering are different things,” he told journalists at the Cloud World Forum in London today. Modern firms want economy, simplicity, agility and innovation, as these are the short-term…